MUSIC

MUSIC; Widow of Lennon, Guardian of Myth

By ALLAN KOZINN

Published: November 15, 1998

AT a glance, the just released four-CD ''John Lennon Anthology'' looks very much like an ambitious collectors' trawl. Lavishly packaged and copiously annotated, this ''Anthology'' (Capitol) brims with studio outtakes, concert performances, private composing tapes and assorted spoken bits -- 94 selections in all. The thriving bootleg market has proved that the Beatles, collectively and individually, have a following that voraciously snaps up material of this kind.

But satisfying the quasi-musicological obsessions of collectors is not the primary purpose of this set. ''Anthology,'' compiled by Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, is less a freestanding record release than an installment in a continuing multimedia biography. It joins a mountain of CD's, videotapes, material for film documentaries and radio series, picture books, collections of Lennon's writings and art works -- that Ms. Ono has released, overseen or sanctioned since Lennon was murdered on Dec. 8, 1980.

This body of posthumously released work is an object lesson in the building, polishing and maintenance of the myth that envelopes a cultural icon. Outside the world of pop music, one sees similar treatment accorded to Lennon's neighbor at the Dakota apartments, Leonard Bernstein. Soon after Bernstein's death in 1990, his children and his production company, Amberson, began arranging commemorative concerts and documentaries, reissuing classic television appearances and encouraging performances of newly published, authoritative editions of his works. An official Web site and a newsletter keep the world abreast of these developments.

Many pop stars fare less well. Since the death of Elvis Presley in 1977, RCA has reissued his recordings by the boxful, the Postal Service has memorialized him on a stamp, and there have been several books and documentaries, not all of them sympathetic. But he left no legacy of self-defining interviews, and with no one seeing to his posthumous image, he has become an amorphous figure -- an overdeveloped larynx attached to an increasingly dissolute body.

On Lennon' behalf, Ms. Ono has projected a carefully defined picture of a musician, peace campaigner, husband and father, a man with a complex temperament and an equally complex sense of humor. In her liner notes for the ''Anthology,'' in fact, Ms. Ono begins with an almost novelistic physical description:

''In person, John was a much more attractive man than the one you saw in photos and films. He had very fair, delicate skin and soft, sandy hair with a touch of red in it when the light hit it a certain way.'' Then, after describing the moles on his forehead, the gracefulness with which he carried himself, and his personal magnetism, she adds: ''His slumming, clowning and acting the entertainer was just a kind of play acting he enjoyed. But it was obvious to anybody around him that he was actually a very heavy dude: not a prince, but a king.''

This is hagiography, certainly; yet Ms. Ono pointedly avoids making Lennon into a plaster saint. Even if she were so inclined, his life was too thoroughly documented for that, and doubtless Lennon would have loathed the idea. So her notes discuss bad times as well as good, and touch on his angry, stubborn, indiscreet and remarkably inconsiderate sides. She describes, for example, an incident in which Lennon had sex with another woman at a party while Ms. Ono and the other guests waited in the next room. Telling that story follows a principle of myth-making that goes back to ancient times: an iconic figure's flaws put his virtues in high relief.

Granted, as popular culture icons go, Ms. Ono has plenty to work with: Lennon's work with the Beatles guarantees him a constituency. But it is Lennon's post-Beatles work that Ms. Ono is most vigorously promoting, and the audience for that has always been shakier, because the work itself was uneven. At its worst -- the batch of topical broadsides that made up the ''Sometime in New York City'' double album -- it is workaday and expendable. Even Lennon regarded it that way. His best music, though, is incisive, abrasive and hard-hitting.

Many of the songs on his best albums, ''Plastic Ono Band,'' ''Imagine'' and ''Double Fantasy,'' are also intensely personal. It is not lost on Ms. Ono that for the personal songs to live, listeners must remain curious about the circumstances that led Lennon to write them. Hence the constant stoking of the Lennon story: if either his music or myth were not constantly in the public eye and ear, his post-Beatles music might fade into 1970's oldiedom.

This is why Ms. Ono has not opposed the use of Lennon's music and image in advertisements, to the chagrin of Lennon's most ardent and idealistic fans. Hearing him sing ''Revolution'' in a Nike ad or seeing him portrayed, along with Einstein, Gandhi and Bob Dylan, in Apple Computer's ''Think Different'' pantheon, serves a purpose beyond the hawking of someone else's product.

Lennon himself was a championship-level promoter of his work and ideas. When world peace became his pet project, in 1969, he turned his honeymoon with Ms. Ono into a Bed-In for Peace, news media invited. To reporters who asked why, he said that since the news media were reporting on his marriage anyway, he might as well use the occasion to get his message out. Thereafter, he periodically promoted his albums with interviews that were so expansive that several were published as books, in question-answer form.